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From: "craig o'donnell" <>
Subject: [LDR] Harpers Monthly, 1869 -2-, Life Saving Service
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 08:28:10 -0500


POLICEMEN OF THE SEA.

In the minor considerations of architectural proportions, beauty,
finish, etc., the quarters of the keepers and their families, the
quality of the lights, etc., our Government lighthouses and ships are
by no means equal to those of England or France, as they should be,
and not superior to many less wealthy maritime nations. Sandy Hook
lightship, which stands like a vidette to mark, if not to guard, the
entrance to New' York Bay, is perhaps the best of all our lightships,
but it is by no means a superior vessel for its peculiar purpose. It
carries two very uncertain lights; which mark the locality it is
true, but shed no ray on objects temporarily near it and with which
passing vessels might come in contact. It has been more than once
swept from its moorings and carried to sea. Of the remainder -- there
are only thirty-three in all - only a half a dozen are of the first
class.

Among them it may be interesting to mention the poor old shattered
Arctic, in which Elisha Kent Kane made his famous cruise in search of
Sir John Franklin. She was originally built for a lightship, but was
fitted up at the expense of the Government for the Arctic voyage.
Upon the return of the expedition the engines were taken out of her,
and she was sent to Smithville, North Carolina, to mark the entrance
to Cape Fear River. The rebels seized and sunk her to obstruct the
channel which she had been built to mark. She was raised in 1866 and
repaired, and now, painted a dull lead color, with her famous name
blotted out, and the uneuphonius title of "Hen and Chickens" painted
on either side, she marks the dangerous reef of that name off the
Massachusetts coast.

The two towers which stand on the Highlands of Neversink, New Jersey,
and mark with great clearness the northern coast of that State, are
fine structures of much architectural beauty; but they are in this
respect the exception and not the rule in our system. They are the
highest light towers on the Atlantic coast, being 248 feet above the
sea, and next to Farrallon, Point Conception, and Point Bonita --
towers on the California coast -- the highest in the country. They
are visible at sea for a distance of 19 miles. The keepers' houses
here are very neat and comfortable, but the majority of those
furnished are little better than huts. In fact this service, of such
incalculable importance to all commercial interests and to the
preservation of human life, and which is worthy of the best service
of the best men, is in every respect poorly rewarded, and due credit
and honor has never been awarded to the self-sacrificing men who have
had the immediate charge of our lighthouses.

"A stormy night," says David Stephenson "may rudely drift the sleet
against our windows and disturb our rest; and perhaps our sympathies
may be awakened for the men who patrol our dark streets as guardians
of our property; but seldom in those dismal nights do our thoughts
extend to the solitary outposts of our land, where, confined to the
narrow cabin of a lightship, or watching in towers perched on bleak
headlands or sunken rocks, the true guardians of this country's naval
greatness keep their quiet and unostentatious vigil, unthought of
because remote and unknown. Whether we consider the important
position which our lightships occupy among the tortuous channels
leading to our great ports, or the calm endurance of their
ever-tempest-rocked inmates, they can not fail to arrest our
interest, and inspire us with thankfulness that men are found ever
ready to discharge the most unenviable duties in the important and
humane work of protecting the lives of our hardy seamen."

The life is one of great hardships, often of danger, and always of
care and watchfulness. The man who accepts it must necessarily
isolate himself from all the world save his own family, and be
content with the society of wife and children only. Generally the men
who obtain appointments as keepers are old sailors with families, and
their sons, and sometimes their wives and daughters, figure on the
payroll as assistant keepers. Often it is on the wife and daughter
that the whole duty devolves, for the men and boys have often to eke
out the subsistence of a large family in other ways. Attached to each
dwelling, when the keeper's residence can be built apart from the
tower, is a small garden which the keeper cultivates. He is generally
a fisher also; and often in the gloom of night, or that still darker
gloom of the storm, the women trim the lamps weepingly.

The most neglected branch of our coast service is that which, in all
senses, must always be the most important. The lifeboat service of
the United States, when compared with that of any other nation --
whether with "La Société Centrale de Sauvetage des Naufrages" of
France, or the "Royal National Life-Boat Institution" of England --
is a reproach to the Government. We maintain on our entire coastline
only twenty-four lifeboat stations; these are located at the most
exposed and dangerous points, but of course in number are wholly
inadequate for the purpose. An error not less disastrous to the
efficiency of the service is the entire dependence on volunteer
efforts in the saving of life. In the vital matter of the national
existence we have depended, and may always depend, with confidence in
the volunteer military system, but we have found it necessary to have
educated and experienced men to direct it.

Our lifeboat has no such direction. I have seen it stated that the
Government employs for each station an officer who takes care of the
boat and apparatus, and who in an emergency directs the volunteer
crew. I can, however, find no authority for the statement. The
stations seem to be left to take care of themselves; and the boats
are manned solely by coast farmers, wreckers, lightkeepers, etc.
There is no reward, pecuniary or honorary, held out to induce any one
to save life. A rule of the Admiralty courts renders it necessary
that a wrecker in establishing his claim for salvage shall prove that
he endeavored to rescue all life endangered before attempting to save
property; but this is the only regulation which makes it to the
interest of the wreckers to do duty in the lifeboats. The hope that
rescued persons may prove generous is doubtless an incentive which
induces many wreckers to risk their own to save other lives.

The lifeboat stations are scattered along the coast, each being
numbered. They are generally, but not always, near a lighthouse or
settlement of wreckers, and one of these or some coast farmer or the
lightkeeper is supposed to have the boat and car wand rocket
apparatus in charge. Each station house contains, besides the
life-car and lifeboat, a sufficiency of kindling wood or "pine knots"
to build a fire in an emergency, rockets to be fired as signals to
assemble crews, some rough clothing, medicines, etc. The boat and car
are usually mounted on wheels in order to be carried to distant parts
of the adjacent coast, but no horses are maintained at Government
expense to draw them, those of the nearest farmer being "pressed
into" the "volunteer" service.

The life-car is a peculiarity of the American service, and is due to
the inventive genius of Joseph Francis. A full account of this very
useful invention may be found in this Magazine for July, 1851.

It is difficult to speak of the efficiency of this part of our
system, for the simple reason that no reliable data can be obtained
from any sources as to the number of lives saved by this means. I
asked Mr. J.C. Smith, of the Merchants' Exchange and News Association
of New York, from whom I received many of the statistics used in
other parts of' this article, if he had ever kept any account of the
losses of life by shipwreck. "No," he answered. "I did attempt to do
it, but I found they were not wanted. Nobody here cared for those
figures. 1 have to condense my statements for the papers and the
Board of Underwriters, and the column of 'lives' didn't pay for the
room. This, you know, is a mercantile, not a humane Society.

Not even the numbers of lives lost annually is obtainable. I have
found memoranda, among other documents in Mr. Smith's possession, of
the lives lost in particular wrecks, as for instance, in that of the
Arctic, when 800 souls perished; the City of Glasgow, 420; and the
Austria, 500!

In one month of 1861, in which 38 vessels were wrecked, the loss of
life was put down at 200 and marked "very heavy." If the average for
each week is put down at only thirty lives, it can be shown that
during the last ten years 14,649 persons have been lost in American
vessels, or about 1500 a year.

Think of five drowned bodies being cast daily upon the sands of our
coast! Is it any wonder that, before the sun is above the horizon,
the industrious wrecker can be found making his "morning round" in
search of what fortune the sea has thrown him from her depths? Is it
to be wondered at that, grown callous and cold-blooded in long years
of intimacy with disaster and death, he sometimes takes his fortune
from the pockets of him who will need it no more?
..
--
Craig O'Donnell
Sinepuxent Ancestors & Boats
<http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~fassitt/>;
The Proa FAQ <http://boat-links.com/proafaq.html>;
The Cheap Pages <http://www2.friend.ly.net/~dadadata/>;
Sailing Canoes, Polytarp Sails, Bamboo, Chinese Junks,
American Proas, the Bolger Boat Honor Roll,
Plywood Boats, Bamboo Rafts, &c.
_________________________________

-- Professor of Boatology -- Junkomologist
-- Macintosh kinda guy
Friend of Wanda the Wonder Cat, 1991-1997.
_________________________________
---
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